


in the family

by elftrash



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elftrash/pseuds/elftrash
Summary: Celebrían’s parents were horribly in love, and difficult to divide on matters like bedtime and how far up a tree one should be allowed to climb. They didn’t agree on things like whether Celebrían should be allowed to learn things from Cousin Celebrimbor in the forge, or whether Dwarf friends should be invited to dinner, but they never argued about it.  They had conversations with their eyes, and in their heads, their faces calm, and then they always gave her their answer together.
Relationships: Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis
Comments: 28
Kudos: 122





	in the family

“What would my name be, in your language?” Celebrían asked.

Galadriel rarely betrayed surprise. Little did surprise her. Celebrían supposed that that was what happened where you were as old as her mother was. She was _very_ old, after all, older than Men could get, or Dwarves, and older than most Edhil. You couldn’t see it on her skin, which was smooth, or her hair, because the silver there wasn’t the same as grey, but sometimes Celebrían saw it in her eyes. 

“Tyel – Telpentari,” said her mother, as though she was surprised, and hadn’t prepared her answer, and then shook her head. “Telpentíri, perhaps.”

It was a strange name, harsher than Celebrían was used to. “Telpentari,” she said, trying it out, and made a face.

“Don’t repeat that, Celebrían.”

 _Don’t say that around your father_ , she meant. Celebrían’s parents were horribly in love, and difficult to divide on matters like bedtime and how far up a tree one should be allowed to climb. They didn’t agree on things like whether Celebrían should be allowed to learn things from Cousin Celebrimbor in the forge, or whether Dwarf friends should be invited to dinner, but they never argued. They had conversations with their eyes, and in their heads, their faces calm, and then they always gave her their answer together. They were like a wall without any footholds for climbing, their marble polished too smooth. 

Galadriel never spoke her language around Celebrían now. She’d sung to her in it when Celebrían was very little, the words that were _almost_ understandable, the vowels the same, but harsher consonants coming more often, hissing sounds instead of the softer _th, th._ “What was your name?”

“My name is Galadriel,” said her mother calmly, and when Celebrían kept looking at her; “Alatariel.”

“Alatariel,” Celebrían said, running it around in her mouth too. Crown: queen. “Ala _tar_ iel. Telpen _tar_ i. Am I named for you, too, as well as Ada?”

“Yes,” said Galadriel. “But don’t repeat those names, Celebrían.”

\- 

Cousin Celebrimbor didn’t talk much when he was working. Celebrían never minded that. He didn’t talk much anyway, and she could talk enough for both of them, or sing, and sometimes he would sing with her as he worked. Sometimes the Dwarves who worked with him would sing, too: they didn’t know the Sindarin words, or wouldn’t say them, but they would hum low in their throats and sound like the bees in their apiaries but lower, like music filtered through stone. 

Celebrían could speak Mannish with them, a little, the language the Men of Eriador spoke that Cousin Celebrimbor said had been called Taliska once, or had become something called Taliska somewhere over the mountains in the lost lands, although it had changed very much since then. They didn’t speak Dwarvish to her. Cousin Celebrimbor spoke it with them. Sometimes new Dwarves fresh from Hadhodrond got very upset about that, but they usually calmed down. He wouldn’t teach her Dwarvish, but some of them would laugh when Celebrían echoed what they said, and guessed at the meaning, and Narvi would wink at her when she was right. 

“Cousin Celebrimbor,” she said, and stopped polishing casting marks out of the new steel. “What was your name in your language?”

She said it in Sindarin, but Narvi stopped what he was doing, too. “ _Have_ you another name, then?” he said, in his deep Dwarvish-Mannish. “Celebrimbor?”

“It’s the same name,” Cousin Celebrimbor said. The shape of his shoulders made it clear that he knew they were both still looking at him. He sighed, clipped a final clamp, and turned. “Why do you ask, Celebrían?”

“I like knowing things,” Celebrían said simply, and Cousin Celebrimbor’s eyes crinkled. They did that sometimes, when something made him laugh; their corners were pushed up by the rising tide of his cheeks, and his blue-grey eyes shone silvery.

“Ah, the lament of your kind,” said Narvi, and added something else in Dwarvish Celebrían didn’t know that made Cousin Celebrimbor’s eyes crinkle further. 

“It’s the same name,” he said again. “But in Quenya I was called Tyelperinquar.”

That was a nice name, although it was longer and less grumbly-growly than _Celebrimbor_ , which had always sounded like the forge to Celebrían, the forge and the grumbly-growly mumbling of Dwarvish. A long name, a name like water over smooth river-stones, and only one hard new sound in it.

“ _I_ would be called Telpentarí,” Celebrían told him importantly. “Is it _Tyelpë_ for boys, and _Telpë_ for girls?”

“A logical conclusion,” Cousin Celebrimbor said. He always listened to her carefully and talked to her like she was as old as her mother. “But no, Celebrían. _Tyelpë_ was used by the Noldor, and _Telpë_ by the Teleri. Your mother and her family preferred the Telerin form, and mine were – rather more traditional.” 

“Tyelperinquar,” said Narvi. He was only a little taller than Celebrían, which usually made her feel very grown-up, but now he was talking over her head to Cousin Celebrimbor like they were alone in the workshop. “Do you prefer it?”

“It will always be the name my mother gave me. But it’s not my name any longer, and I made my choices long ago.”

Narvi nodded, and the silver beads in his dark beard made small chiming sounds when they clicked together. “As you will. Celebrimbor.”

-

Her father sighed when he saw her hands. 

Celebrían had been sitting on his knee and telling him about the bees and the new honey, and the grey squirrel in her favourite tree in the south courtyard, and he had been smiling, his head tipped fondly to her and his hair a silver river all down his shoulder like the Sirannon itself. 

Then she had gestured too much, and drawn his eye to her broken nails and the grit under them from scrubbing the new-casting bright, and the smile had gone. She curled her hands closed, too late, but her father gently coaxed them back open. “You don’t need to hide your leaves from me, little tree."

It was a gentle name, _galadh tithen_ , a little name, _th, th, th_. Nothing was softer in the world than her father speaking Sindarin, than her name or her mother’s on his tongue. It was a soft little joke, her nickname that almost meant _little Galadriel_. Sometimes he called Celebrían _tithenorn_ , which was almost the same joke, the way he sometimes called her mother _Galadlóriel._

“Did you enjoy your time with the Mírdain?”

“I like Cousin Celebrimbor,” Celebrían said. “He makes things.”

“What was he making today?”

“Something for reading the stars, with a flat bottom like a dinner plate and other plates that fit together inside it, and then there are all these, these little gears, and pointers shaped like stars and snakes and leaves and dog’s heads - ”

“That sounds very nice,” said her Ada. He lifted her grubby fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “What a smell of pot-metal! What were the stars like, Celebrían?”

“ _Stars_ ,” she said. “Narvi is going to put diamonds in the pointers for them, if he can get nice enough matched ones. I wanted to polish the plates but Cousin Celebrimbor said no, they’d been polished already.” She made a face. “So I polished steel instead. I _like_ polishing gold. It’s all buttery.”

“Do you think you might wash your hands before dinner, _tithenorn_?” 

“No one coming will _mind_ , Ada.”

“Are we having guests?”

“Lord Celebrimbor is coming,” said Celebrían’s mother, coming into the garden where they were sitting, the afternoon light caught in her hair. She put her white hand on Celeborn’s shoulder, and they looked at each other a long moment, because they were disgustingly in love. Her fingernails were like polished pink quartz.

They were talking to each other in their heads. Celebrían picked some of the grit out from under her ragged nails, and eventually her father said, “How nice it will be to see him.”

“Lord Narvi will be accompanying him.”

Another long silent conversation.

To fill the silence, Celebrían said, singing a little, “ _Celeb_ rimbor and _Celeb_ rían and _Celeb_ orn. Ammë is the only one in our family without a silver-name. Does that ever make you feel lonely, Ammë?” 

“No,” said Galadriel. “My name suits me very well.”

“Lord Celebrimbor is not very close kin to you, and no kin at all to me,” said Celeborn, and his voice got a little less soft.

“But he’s my _cousin_ ,” said Celebrían. “My _only_ one.”

There was a long silence. 

“That’s not true,” said her mother at last. “One day, when you’re a little older, and Ost-in-Edhil can spare us, we’ll take you to Lindon, and you can meet King Gil-galad. He’s another cousin. And Lord Elrond! He’s a cousin on both sides, kin to both your father and I. And far away, in the Greenwood, your father has a far-cousin called Oropher.”

Celebrían had heard a lot about King Gil-galad, but not that he was a cousin. She should have guessed. _Galad_ riel. Gil- _galad_. That was nice. _Elrond_ was a strange name. It didn’t sound like family. _Oropher_ made her want to laugh, it was so Sindarin.

“You had more cousins once,” said her father. 

“What happened to them?”

“We’ll tell you one day,” he said. “When you’re a little older." 

Her mother looked right at her. _Don’t mention it around your father, Celebrían_. It wasn’t because it might make him cross, Celebrían could tell now, but because it would make him sad. That was why her mother sometimes said things, and then added _don't repeat that._ They weren't secrets at all. They were things that were too sharp, that hadn't had the edges rubbed off.

Out loud, in the quiet garden, Galadriel said, “I think I’ll ask Celebrimbor to come another night.”

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine that things got very awkward in Eregion sometimes, long before Sauron showed up.
> 
> JRRT is very clear that Galadriel's name meant 'maiden crowned with light' from _galad_ , nothing to do with _galadh_ , tree, but that's the joke Celeborn's making by calling her Galadlóriel (Golden Tree, i.e. the partner to himself, Silver Tree).
> 
> (yes, my unfinished wip lies on my heart like Calais and I AM getting back to it but this is something that just floated into my head today when I was thinking about names).


End file.
